


near miss

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Star Wars (Marvel Comics), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Hugs, Introspection, Multi, POV Second Person, Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-08 16:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15933899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: You hope. Youhope. So much that you can’t even fathom the depths of it. You’ve never hoped so much in your life. Nobody who worked for the Empire has ever hoped, not really. They hadn’t needed to. They’d always known they would win. You’d known it, too, believed it.





	near miss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weakinteraction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/gifts).



It becomes impossible to avoid the vids. Even on the scummiest of Outer Rim planets, they find you, proof that somewhere out there, the Empire is dead, long live the New Republic. You stare and stare at the footage, repeated for days on the Holonet. It is the destruction of your way of life, a way you hadn’t always been certain about, a way you’d turned from when forced to make the decision, but the way you’d chosen once. It hurts more than it should, even knowing it was inevitable.

With people like Sana even turning against them, Aphra, sometimes, when Sana can convince her, they hadn’t stood a chance. When even the selfish, self-absorbed people of the galaxy say enough, you are so very screwed.

You yourself never officially chose a side, but you never stopped Sana from going off on her adventures. You never stopped Aphra from going with her. Sometimes, you even fed them bits of information that improved their odds of survival, sometimes made the difference between a Rebellion failure and a Rebellion success.

Now it’s over and you are complicit, damned on both sides.

Your drink is swill, burns the lining of your throat, but you swallow it all back anyway and order another with equal solemnity. The bartender catches your signal immediately and draws up a fresh glass, sends it trundling over on a grimy tray held by an even grimier droid. It seems to take forever for it to arrive or perhaps it’s just you’re nervous and anxious for another arrival.

They told you to meet them here. Today. Right now. Aphra and Sana.

They are nowhere to be found.

But you received the message days ago. For all you know, one or the other or both are dead, their ashes spread across Endor’s upper atmosphere or their bodies decaying somewhere on the forest moon’s floor. There would be no one with the Rebellion who would know to tell you or care. And even if they did, you merely fled the Empire, you never defected. The New Republic will not look kindly on that.

You try to imagine Sana and Aphra making a case for you before Leia Organa.

You have a hard time holding back bitter laughter at the thought of it.

Perhaps you should have staked a claim. You don’t believe in the Empire any more. How much would it have destroyed what little honor you have to choose their enemy for a time? From what Sana and Aphra have told you, they aren’t so bad. As uncertain as you are on that score, you believe that they believe. That should have been enough.

Again, the footage plays. This time, you pay even more attention. Perhaps you will see Sana’s ship this time, some sign of Aphra’s particular brand of mayhem in the grand, sweeping arcs of the Rebellion ships as they take on the second Death Star.

There is nothing new to be seen, though, and your stomach sours around the copious liquor you’ve already downed.

Drinking has never been your thing. You shouldn’t have pretended it was.

That sensation isn’t so new. There’s a lot you shouldn’t have done since you first met Aphra. But just like you can’t undrink what you’ve drunk, you can’t undo what you did. It all led to this moment and there is no changing that.

If they don’t step through that door, what is the point of it all? That thought alone drives itself in circles around your brain, crashes against the walls of your mind.

How could you have been so naïve?

How could you have been so weak?

Letting one person in, let alone two, and criminals at that, foolish, foolhardy criminals? It was sloppy. It’s still sloppy. You can’t trust them, but you do anyway. You shouldn’t hope for anything from them, but you do that, too.

Your eyes drift to the door when it opens. Your heart climbs your throat, lodges itself there so that you very nearly cannot breath. Harsh streaks of sunlight flood the entrance, catching motes of dust in the coldly orange light. 

Two women, backlit, enter and just as you cannot breathe, you can’t stop yourself from pushing yourself to your feet and squinting. You can tell nothing from their outlines, covered from head to foot in linen to protect against the sand that permeates so many Outer Rim worlds. 

You hope. You _hope_. So much that you can’t even fathom the depths of it. You’ve never hoped so much in your life. Nobody who worked for the Empire has ever hoped, not really. They hadn’t needed to. They’d always known they would win. You’d known it, too, believed it.

And look where it got you.

Look how far you’ve come. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? You’re not so sure one way or the other. It is, at this point, what it is. There’s no changing it.

Nobody knows you here, but you still wince when Aphra—and of course, it’s Aphra, it couldn’t be anyone else now that she’s stepped into the shadowy depths of the cantina, ironically so much easier to see in the dimness—calls you by your name, shouts it across the room at you. “Tolvan!” she says, but she sounds so happy about it that your heart threatens to split in two. You’d risk the wrath of the Empire, the retribution of the Reb—New Republic for that kind of happiness. For a moment, you can’t decide whether to laugh or cry, so you settle for neither.

Sana, too, steps into the darkness, her more controlled smile equally appealing. It is a wonder that these two should see anything in you worth coming back to. They have each other, an easier bond in some ways in that their treachery is balanced against the good they’ve done. Your contributions are… slim. Simple to elide. In the grand political scheme of things, you are still the enemy to the new order that is forming around you.

Some of you wishes you’d changed that while you could.

The rest lets you be glad that you have this at least.

Shoving yourself around the perimeter of your table, you stride toward the pair, unwilling to wait any longer for your reunion than you must. Something must show on your face, because though Sana’s expression is still sardonic, it softens and her step, once sauntering, speeds just a bit. Just enough for you to know she and Aphra had been through hell and Sana hadn’t been sure they’d make it.

When had you gotten so good at anticipating Sana’s thoughts, at reading her every motion and knowing what it means? And why does it make you so pleased with yourself, so content?

Aphra throws her hands around your neck as soon as you’re close enough for her to do that. Her laugh sparkles against the shell of your ear. “You made it,” she says. It could break your heart how relieved she manages to sound as she kisses your cheek.

For once, you believe her fully.

You don’t remember the last time that happened.

“Good to see you,” Sana says, clapping you on the shoulder. She squeezes gently and that is almost like a hug from her. “You’re looking better than I expected.”

You duck your head, nose against Aphra’s throat, and inhale.

“I missed you,” you say, voice choking on the words.

You’re at home. Finally. With both of them now at your side.

You never want to leave.

And in this one, small way, you’ve never been more certain of anything in your life.


End file.
